November 21, 2009
Ni Teo S. Marasigan
Mahusay ang pagpapakita ng pagiging brutal ng karahasang pinawalan ng rehimeng Arroyo sa mga aktibista at maging sa mga manggagawang pangkarapatang pantao at mamamahayag – na, katulad ng mga aktibista, ay nagsisiwalat ng lagay ng mga mamamayan. Mahusay rin ang pagpapakita kung paano nilalaro ng militar ang opinyong publiko sa pamamagitan ng simpleng pagbaligtad ng mga kwento – imbes na militar ang gumawa ng isang bagay, ibibintang ito sa New People’s Army o NPA.
Nakatulong ang paggamit sa pagbabalik-tanaw at hindi pagiging linyar ng naratibo. Ang hinala ko, solusyon ito sa praktikal na problemang hinarap ng mga gumawa ng pelikula, dahil nga nakatuon ito sa tortyur. Naiadya nito ang mga manonood sa tuluy-tuloy na panonood sa karahasang dinanas ng magkasintahan sa kamay ng militar.
Mahigpit ang pagkakatahi ng istorya, at lalong dapat itong papurihan dahil ayon kay Bonifacio P. Ilagan, sumulat ng script ng pelikula, batay ang lahat ng laman ng istorya sa mga kwentong naganap sa totoong buhay – ibig sabihin, sa mga aktwal na dinanas ng mga aktibista sa bansa. Sa matatag na pagharap nina Junix at Maricel sa pagpapahirap ng militar – hindi nagsuplong, walang ipinahamak – maaalala tuloy ang iba pang katulad na kwento ng iba pang progresibo at rebolusyunaryo sa bansa.
Isa pang martir sa labanang iyun sa Panay si Antonio Hilario (TonyHil), inaalala ng mga kasama kahit ngayon bilang “utak pang-organisasyon” ng Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan… [S]ugatan si TonyHil. Sabi ng mga nakasaksi, inilibing nang buhay si TonyHil ng mga sundalo ng kaaway. Nang nakataas ang kamao ng pagbabalikwas, sumisigaw siya ng “Mabuhay ang Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas!” habang sadistang tinatabunan ng lupa ng kaaway. [Antonio Zumel, “Remembering the Martyrs,” 1992 nasa Radical Prose: Selected Writings, 2004.]
Sa mga hindi aktibista, ipinapakilala ng pelikula ang panganib na dulot ng cellular phone sa mga aktibista – na tumampok sa panahon ng paghahari ng rehimeng Arroyo.
Para sa karaniwang tao, normal na gamit pangkomunikasyon lang ito at pinagmumulan ng kasiyahan sa araw-araw. Pero bukod sa narito ang mga taong kaugnayan ng isang aktibista, ginagamit din itong pang-tukoy ng kinaroroonan niya. Sa panahon ng rehimeng Arroyo, maraming kwento tungkol sa bagay na ito.
Sa isang probinsya, bago lumaganap sa mga aktibista ang kaalaman tungkol sa panganib ng cellphone, nagpupulong ang ilan sa kanila:
Aktibista 1: (Nakatingin sa cellphone.) Oh, bakit nagte-text ka pa eh kaharap lang kita? Tsaka narinig mo naman ang sinabi niya, bakit itinatanong mo pa ulit?
Aktibista 2: Hindi ako nagte-text.
Bagamat naipakita ng pelikula na wasto at makatarungan ang ginagawa ng mga aktibista, mas madiin ito sa pagsasabi ng isang punto: Na kung inaakusahan man sila ng kung anong kasalanan ng Estado, hindi sila dapat basta na lang dukutin o barilin, kundi litisin at ipakulong. Ito naman talaga ang pagtinging mas makakahatak sa mas marami para tumutol at lumaban sa pagdukot at pagpaslang sa mga aktibista.
Tiyak, gayunman, na mapapaisip ang mga nagpasyang maging kritikal sa pelikula kung bakit pinatay ng kapatid ni Junix ang militar na bagamat oo nga’t nagtortyur at pumatay sa kanyang kapatid ay dapat din sigurong iharap sa batas at parusahan batay dito. Hindi ba’t labag ito sa sinasabi ng pelikula?
Dito hirap ang maraming liberal sa bansa: ang igiit ang dapat habang kinikilala ang totoo – ang igiit na dapat parusahan sa batas ang mga inaakusahang nagkasala rito habang kinikilalang marami ang gumagamit ng dahas labas sa Estado para maghanap ng katarungan sa mga pandarahas ng militar.
Ano ang kaibahan ng liberal at Marxista?
Kapag nakakita sila ng pulubi sa kalsada…
Sasabihin ng liberal: Hindi gumagana ang sistema.
Sasabihin ng Marxista: Gumagana ang sistema.
Ang hinala ko, pinatay ng kapatid ni Junix ang militar sa dulo hindi bilang personal na paghihiganti, kundi bilang miyembro ng NPA. Ang pinangyarihan ng pagpatay – ang sabungan – ang batayan ko. May inilathala kasi dati ang Pinoy Weekly tungkol sa pagpatay ng NPA sa isang elemento ng militar na napatunayan nitong responsable sa pagdukot at pagpatay sa mga aktibista sa Bicol, na naganap din sa sabungan.
Pero ang hinala ko, hindi naunawaan ng mga manonood na NPA sa yugtong iyun ang kapatid ni Junix. Wala naman kasing anumang palatandaan sa pelikula na ganito nga. Pero NPA man o hindi, malamang na papalakpakan ang eksenang ito ng mga manonood – bunsod ng pagkasuklam sa pagpapahirap na ginawa kina Junix at Maricel.
Hindi makakawala ang Dukot sa paghahambing sa Orapronobis. Sila naman kasi ang pinakamatapang na mga pelikulang progresibo sa kasaysayan ng bansa. Pareho silang nag-endorso ng paggamit ng dahas, at nagpapatanggap sa mga manonood na may mga tao sa lipunan na naitutulak na gumamit nito – anuman ang paghusga natin sa kanila.
Lumabas ang Orapronobis noong 1987; ang Dukot, ngayong 2009. Pareho silang kumukwestyon sa “demokrasya” sa bansa. Pareho silang lumabas sa isang panahon ng paghupa ng pampulitikang panunupil – kumpara sa panahon ng diktadurang US-Marcos at kasagsagan ng pampulitikang pagpaslang ng rehimeng Arroyo.
May pagkagulat sa pagkamalay at pagkagalit na dulot ng Orapronobis – na ang mga porma ng pampulitikang panunupil na namayagpag noong panahon ng diktadura ay nagpapatuloy sa bagong rehimeng tinatawag na “demokratiko.” May pagkagulat dahil may pag-asang namamayani sa bagong rehimen, bukod pa sa ang militarisasyon sa kanayunan na isiniwalat ng pelikula ay hindi gaanong malaganap sa kaalaaman lalo na ng mga manonood na nakabase sa urban at ibang probinsyang hindi naging puntirya.
Bagamat may pagkagulat din sa pagkamalay at pagkagalit na dulot ng Dukot, mas dulot ito ng tindi ng brutalidad na ipinakita, na lingid sa kaalaman ng marami. May pangkalahatang kaalaman na kasi ang mga manonood sa isyu ng pampulitikang pagpaslang at pagdukot. Wala rin kasing namamayaning pag-asa sa demokrasya, kundi papadausdos na pesimismo at sinisismo rito at sa posibilidad nito sa bansa.
Kinakaya pa ng ibang bansa na panatilihin ang mga relasyon sa pag-aari sa pamamagitan ng mga pamamaraang tila hindi kasing-marahas tulad ng gamit sa ibang bansa. Nagagawa pa ng demokrasya sa mga bansang ito ang pagkamit ng resultang siyang dahilan kung bakit kailangan ang karahasan sa iba – sa partikular, ang tiyakin ang pribadong pag-aari ng mga kagamitan sa produksyon. [Bertolt Brecht, “Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties,” nasa Galileo, 1966.]
Ang problema sa Dukot, gayunman, ay nasa karakter na si Junix. Bukod sa pagiging masigasig na aktibista at marubdob na mangingibig, wala nang ipinakita sa pagkatao niya. Sa panahong tinotortyur siya at si Maricel, mas matatandaan siyang nagbigay ng palaban at matalas-sa-pulitikang mga pahayag. Na para bang sapat na tanganan ang mga pahayag na ito para maging matatag sa harap ng matinding pagpapahirap.
Sa tingin ko, hindi. Marami ang kailangan para maging matatag sa gitna ng tortyur at banta ng kamatayan. At ito sana ang naisama sa mga pagbabalik-tanaw sa buhay ni Junix: ang mga kwento ng katatagan ng mga naharap sa parehong sitwasyon, ang epekto ng pagtataksil sa mga kapwa-aktibista sa kanila at sa mga inoorganisang anakpawis, ang pagmamahal sa mga kasama at masa, ang mga biruan, at iba pa. Hindi naipakita ang paghango ng isang aktibista sa kultura ng paglaban at pagrerebolusyon sa bansa ng lakas para kaharapin ang pandarahas at banta ng pagpatay. Pwedeng sa ganitong konteksto umangat ang personalidad niya, o maipakitang nahubog.
Tampok ang paghahambing kung paanong mula sa pag-oorganisa at pamumuhay ay ikinahon ang katawan nina Junix at Maricel hanggang sa tuluyang pinatay ang mga ito at kung paano, sa kabilang banda at kasabay naman, umalpas ang katawan ng kanilang mga magulang sa tradisyunal na mga espasyo ng mga ito patungo sa paglaban.
Salamat sa mga manggagawang pangkarapatang pantao at sa buong kilusang progresibo, makatotohanan ang optimismo ng kwento ng pelikula: Na bagamat hindi mapapalitan ang mga aktibistang nagbuwis ng buhay, maging ang kamatayan nila ay pagkakataon para dumami ang mga lumalahok sa kilusang progresibo.
Showing posts with label Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Show all posts
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Czarina
January 30th, 2009/BUSINESSWORLD
http://www.luisteodoro.com/
BY LUIS V. TEODORO
Filipinos aren’t Russians but how they love to designate “czars” to head this or that campaign or group of offices. It’s a practice they’ve picked up from U.S. media and officialdom. Both have the habit of attaching the label to anyone who’s been given powers over several agencies in pursuit of a common goal. One suspects it’s the media that started it all, and that officialdom merely picked up on it, like that linguistic atrocity, “presidentiable” or even — eww — “senatoriable.”
Philippine media and Malacanang itself seemed hard put over what to call her when Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo put herself on top of the so-called Philippine anti-drug effort. They ended up calling her Czarina, which didn’t remind me of Catherine the Great, but of Pooh Bah– the pompous, self-important and useless official in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Mikado.
Just how useless was Mrs. Arroyo’s self-anointment? As (still disputed) President of the Philippines, Mrs. Arroyo already has command over all the offices and agencies involved, and which can still be involved, in the anti-drug campaign (if you can call something that’s half-heartedly carried out a “campaign”) of the Philippine government. These agencies include all units in the Office of the President, as well as the Departments of Justice, Defense, Finance, Transportation and Highways and even Education, and all other agencies attached to them.
The President of the Philippines is in fact the czar (or czarina) of the country of our despair, the Philippine government being highly centralized and its powers concentrated in whoever’s ensconced, legally or illegally, in the Palace by the Pasig. Not for nothing does “command responsibility” fall frequently from the lips of the opposition whenever they dig up some anomaly in this or that agency. Both de facto as well as de jure, the President of the Philippines might as well be the entire Philippine government for the powers that he or she wields. He or she does command — and has the responsibility.
What then could have moved Mrs. Arroyo to so pointlessly designate herself? The unkind assumption is that it was to take the heat off the Department of Justice, whose prosecutors were being accused of intervening — for the usual considerations, of course — in the “Alabang Boys” case. The DOJ is after all one of Mrs. Arroyo’s favorite departments, and it won’t do for Raul Gonzalez to look as if he were presiding over an office of extortionists and bribe-takers.
But even more crucially will it not do for the Philippines to continue being a marijuana producer as well as exporter and transshipment point for methamphetamine and precursor chemicals to Guam, Saipan and the U.S. mainland. The U.S. government is understandably concerned, and has been for a long time, the U.S. drug problem being of such major proportions it’s become a national security issue. Mrs. Arroyo can’t be seen as soft on a problem the U.S. is as concerned about as terrorism, thus her sudden focus on a problem that’s been there for ages, which has grown during her watch, and about which she had not been particularly anxious until this January.
But the hoopla isn’t likely to delude the U.S. government into thinking that something’s actually being done. There’s the announcement that students, and lately, their professors and teachers, will be subjected to random drug testing. Random drug testing is a strategy straight out of the unlamented Bush administration, which in 2007 doubled the US anti-drug budget by allocating millions of dollars more for it.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work — at least not according to British and U.S. experience. While it does seem like a no-brainer to assume that the threat of random drug tests, whether among students, teachers, government and private sector employees, etc., would discourage probable users, thus shrinking the market for illegal drugs, it hasn’t been very successful in deterring students in the U.S. and the U.K. from drug use.
That’s in the U.S. and the U.K., of course, but what would be the basis for random drug tests as a deterrent to drug use in the Philippines? There’s no available study on its effectiveness, and the only reason for its being adopted here seems to be its use in the U.S.
What has been established, on the other hand, is the role of corruption in the persistence and growth of the drug problem, whether in the Philippines or elsewhere. About the Philippines, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs points out that “corruption among the police, judiciary, and elected officials continues to be a significant impediment to Philippine law enforcement efforts.”
The Bureau noted the involvement of Drug Enforcement Agency and police operatives in the sale of confiscated drugs, a practice well- known in law enforcement and police reporters’ circles. There is also the involvement of local officials in the smuggling of drugs and precursor chemicals (the chemicals used to manufacture drugs like methamphetamine or “shabu”) into and out of the Philippines. This country, the Bureau noted in its 2007 report, is “a smugglers’ paradise,” given the number of its islands, length of its coastline, and officials eager for a share of drug trade billions.
As for corrupt judges, the “Alabang Boys” scandal suggests that illegal drug cases may not even be reaching the courts, and seem likely to die at the prosecutorial level. That, of course, is the main lesson emerging from that scandal. But it’s a lesson far from being heeded. Not only will the “Alabang Boys” not be tried, no one in the DOJ will lose his retirement pension either.
All of which says that Mrs. Arroyo should be addressing the corruption issue rather than approving random drug tests which are themselves untested in the Philippine setting as a deterrent to drug use.
Our Czarina has also announced the appointment of retired general Jovito Palparan to the Dangerous Drugs Board, which the short-sighted are hailing as a harbinger of streets and rivers choked with drug-lord bodies. You wish. The fly in this ointment is a reminder from the U.S. Ambassador that the Philippine government should prosecute human rights violators. Our Czarina should take heed. When it comes to the US, she’s not so much Czarina as governor of a U.S. dependency. (BusinessWorld)
http://www.luisteodoro.com/
BY LUIS V. TEODORO
Filipinos aren’t Russians but how they love to designate “czars” to head this or that campaign or group of offices. It’s a practice they’ve picked up from U.S. media and officialdom. Both have the habit of attaching the label to anyone who’s been given powers over several agencies in pursuit of a common goal. One suspects it’s the media that started it all, and that officialdom merely picked up on it, like that linguistic atrocity, “presidentiable” or even — eww — “senatoriable.”
Philippine media and Malacanang itself seemed hard put over what to call her when Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo put herself on top of the so-called Philippine anti-drug effort. They ended up calling her Czarina, which didn’t remind me of Catherine the Great, but of Pooh Bah– the pompous, self-important and useless official in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Mikado.
Just how useless was Mrs. Arroyo’s self-anointment? As (still disputed) President of the Philippines, Mrs. Arroyo already has command over all the offices and agencies involved, and which can still be involved, in the anti-drug campaign (if you can call something that’s half-heartedly carried out a “campaign”) of the Philippine government. These agencies include all units in the Office of the President, as well as the Departments of Justice, Defense, Finance, Transportation and Highways and even Education, and all other agencies attached to them.
The President of the Philippines is in fact the czar (or czarina) of the country of our despair, the Philippine government being highly centralized and its powers concentrated in whoever’s ensconced, legally or illegally, in the Palace by the Pasig. Not for nothing does “command responsibility” fall frequently from the lips of the opposition whenever they dig up some anomaly in this or that agency. Both de facto as well as de jure, the President of the Philippines might as well be the entire Philippine government for the powers that he or she wields. He or she does command — and has the responsibility.
What then could have moved Mrs. Arroyo to so pointlessly designate herself? The unkind assumption is that it was to take the heat off the Department of Justice, whose prosecutors were being accused of intervening — for the usual considerations, of course — in the “Alabang Boys” case. The DOJ is after all one of Mrs. Arroyo’s favorite departments, and it won’t do for Raul Gonzalez to look as if he were presiding over an office of extortionists and bribe-takers.
But even more crucially will it not do for the Philippines to continue being a marijuana producer as well as exporter and transshipment point for methamphetamine and precursor chemicals to Guam, Saipan and the U.S. mainland. The U.S. government is understandably concerned, and has been for a long time, the U.S. drug problem being of such major proportions it’s become a national security issue. Mrs. Arroyo can’t be seen as soft on a problem the U.S. is as concerned about as terrorism, thus her sudden focus on a problem that’s been there for ages, which has grown during her watch, and about which she had not been particularly anxious until this January.
But the hoopla isn’t likely to delude the U.S. government into thinking that something’s actually being done. There’s the announcement that students, and lately, their professors and teachers, will be subjected to random drug testing. Random drug testing is a strategy straight out of the unlamented Bush administration, which in 2007 doubled the US anti-drug budget by allocating millions of dollars more for it.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work — at least not according to British and U.S. experience. While it does seem like a no-brainer to assume that the threat of random drug tests, whether among students, teachers, government and private sector employees, etc., would discourage probable users, thus shrinking the market for illegal drugs, it hasn’t been very successful in deterring students in the U.S. and the U.K. from drug use.
That’s in the U.S. and the U.K., of course, but what would be the basis for random drug tests as a deterrent to drug use in the Philippines? There’s no available study on its effectiveness, and the only reason for its being adopted here seems to be its use in the U.S.
What has been established, on the other hand, is the role of corruption in the persistence and growth of the drug problem, whether in the Philippines or elsewhere. About the Philippines, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs points out that “corruption among the police, judiciary, and elected officials continues to be a significant impediment to Philippine law enforcement efforts.”
The Bureau noted the involvement of Drug Enforcement Agency and police operatives in the sale of confiscated drugs, a practice well- known in law enforcement and police reporters’ circles. There is also the involvement of local officials in the smuggling of drugs and precursor chemicals (the chemicals used to manufacture drugs like methamphetamine or “shabu”) into and out of the Philippines. This country, the Bureau noted in its 2007 report, is “a smugglers’ paradise,” given the number of its islands, length of its coastline, and officials eager for a share of drug trade billions.
As for corrupt judges, the “Alabang Boys” scandal suggests that illegal drug cases may not even be reaching the courts, and seem likely to die at the prosecutorial level. That, of course, is the main lesson emerging from that scandal. But it’s a lesson far from being heeded. Not only will the “Alabang Boys” not be tried, no one in the DOJ will lose his retirement pension either.
All of which says that Mrs. Arroyo should be addressing the corruption issue rather than approving random drug tests which are themselves untested in the Philippine setting as a deterrent to drug use.
Our Czarina has also announced the appointment of retired general Jovito Palparan to the Dangerous Drugs Board, which the short-sighted are hailing as a harbinger of streets and rivers choked with drug-lord bodies. You wish. The fly in this ointment is a reminder from the U.S. Ambassador that the Philippine government should prosecute human rights violators. Our Czarina should take heed. When it comes to the US, she’s not so much Czarina as governor of a U.S. dependency. (BusinessWorld)
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Fire the driver
http://www.aer.ph/
Dispatches from the Enchanted Kingdom
By Manuel Buencamino
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Buencamino is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms. "Fire the Driver" was published in the Business Mirror on November 26, 2008, page A6.
Let’s grant that those who advocate Charter change love their country as much as those who push for impeachment. Both groups believe the country needs reform, but they disagree on the means.
Charter changers, like the communists, blame the system. They say we stand a better chance of getting to where we want to go if we change the form of government. Simply put, we’ll get there faster if we had a better car. Impeachers, on the other hand, believe that not even a Rolls Royce will get you there if you have a monkey at the wheel.
Last Sunday, I read an article by Patricia Evangelista, a columnist for another daily. It was the story of one Raymond Manalo, a suspected communist sympathizer who was abducted, detained, and tortured by the military.
Here are excerpts from his story:
“Sometimes, when the soldiers are drinking, they take you out of your cage and play with you. The game varies, but it is usually the same. Two by fours, chains, an open gardening hose shoved down your nose. You crawl back to your cage, on your hands and knees. You wake up to screaming, to the sound of grown men begging, and you wonder which one it is this time. Sometimes, one of your cellmates will disappear. Sometimes, they don’t come back.
“Then they take you away, and there is a doctor, pills, antibiotics, a bed. They tell you they are taking you home to see your parents. You meet the man they call The Butcher, and he tells you to tell your parents not to join the rallies, to stay away from human rights groups, that they would ruin your life and your brother’s. He tells you, this small man in shorts, that if you can only prove you’re on his side now, he would let you and your brother live. He gives you a box of vitamins, and tells you that they are expensive: P35 per pill.”
Thank God for tender mercies.
But it gets better.
“And in April 2007, you hear a woman begging, and when you are ordered to fix dinner, you see Sherlyn, lying naked on a chair that had fallen on the floor, both wrists and one tied leg propped up. You see them hit her with wooden planks, see her electrocuted, beaten, half-drowned. You see them amuse themselves with her body, poke sticks into her vagina, shove a water hose into her nose and mouth. And you see the soldiers wives’ watch.”
What sort of human being would invite his wife to witness such atrocities; what kind of woman would go and watch her husband dehumanize another woman?
Torture is now entertainment. How will changing the system without replacing the one who called a torturer “my hero” stop human rights abuses? Charter change will be nothing more than putting a different gun a different gun in the hands of monsters.
There is a direct link between human rights abuses and corruption. One flows from the other. Human rights abuses become rampant when people impoverished by unabated corruption begin to demand reforms. Free speech is curtailed through intimidation; discontent and dissent are suppressedthrough extrajudicial detentions, disappearances, and killings.
Will Charter change put a dent on corruption if the same crooks remain in the driver’s seat?
Corruption is the ugly part of human nature. It can never be totally eliminated, unless you want to eliminate all humans. The most one can hope for is to keep corruption at a minimum. But that does not mean we adopt Romulo Neri’s fatalistic philosophy of “moderating greed.”
Instead, we need to make sure everybody understands that those who steal are guaranteed severe punishment. That’s the only way to raise the cost-benefit ratio of corruption.
Asking crooks to amend the Charter so they can hang on to their position is like buying a new car instead of firing a reckless driver. Let’s change the driver before we even begin to think about tinkering with the car because, more often than not, the problem is with the driver and not the car.
Impeaching Gloria Arroyo is a more effective game changer than changing the system but keeping everyone in place.
Dispatches from the Enchanted Kingdom
By Manuel Buencamino
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Buencamino is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms. "Fire the Driver" was published in the Business Mirror on November 26, 2008, page A6.
Let’s grant that those who advocate Charter change love their country as much as those who push for impeachment. Both groups believe the country needs reform, but they disagree on the means.
Charter changers, like the communists, blame the system. They say we stand a better chance of getting to where we want to go if we change the form of government. Simply put, we’ll get there faster if we had a better car. Impeachers, on the other hand, believe that not even a Rolls Royce will get you there if you have a monkey at the wheel.
Last Sunday, I read an article by Patricia Evangelista, a columnist for another daily. It was the story of one Raymond Manalo, a suspected communist sympathizer who was abducted, detained, and tortured by the military.
Here are excerpts from his story:
“Sometimes, when the soldiers are drinking, they take you out of your cage and play with you. The game varies, but it is usually the same. Two by fours, chains, an open gardening hose shoved down your nose. You crawl back to your cage, on your hands and knees. You wake up to screaming, to the sound of grown men begging, and you wonder which one it is this time. Sometimes, one of your cellmates will disappear. Sometimes, they don’t come back.
“Then they take you away, and there is a doctor, pills, antibiotics, a bed. They tell you they are taking you home to see your parents. You meet the man they call The Butcher, and he tells you to tell your parents not to join the rallies, to stay away from human rights groups, that they would ruin your life and your brother’s. He tells you, this small man in shorts, that if you can only prove you’re on his side now, he would let you and your brother live. He gives you a box of vitamins, and tells you that they are expensive: P35 per pill.”
Thank God for tender mercies.
But it gets better.
“And in April 2007, you hear a woman begging, and when you are ordered to fix dinner, you see Sherlyn, lying naked on a chair that had fallen on the floor, both wrists and one tied leg propped up. You see them hit her with wooden planks, see her electrocuted, beaten, half-drowned. You see them amuse themselves with her body, poke sticks into her vagina, shove a water hose into her nose and mouth. And you see the soldiers wives’ watch.”
What sort of human being would invite his wife to witness such atrocities; what kind of woman would go and watch her husband dehumanize another woman?
Torture is now entertainment. How will changing the system without replacing the one who called a torturer “my hero” stop human rights abuses? Charter change will be nothing more than putting a different gun a different gun in the hands of monsters.
There is a direct link between human rights abuses and corruption. One flows from the other. Human rights abuses become rampant when people impoverished by unabated corruption begin to demand reforms. Free speech is curtailed through intimidation; discontent and dissent are suppressedthrough extrajudicial detentions, disappearances, and killings.
Will Charter change put a dent on corruption if the same crooks remain in the driver’s seat?
Corruption is the ugly part of human nature. It can never be totally eliminated, unless you want to eliminate all humans. The most one can hope for is to keep corruption at a minimum. But that does not mean we adopt Romulo Neri’s fatalistic philosophy of “moderating greed.”
Instead, we need to make sure everybody understands that those who steal are guaranteed severe punishment. That’s the only way to raise the cost-benefit ratio of corruption.
Asking crooks to amend the Charter so they can hang on to their position is like buying a new car instead of firing a reckless driver. Let’s change the driver before we even begin to think about tinkering with the car because, more often than not, the problem is with the driver and not the car.
Impeaching Gloria Arroyo is a more effective game changer than changing the system but keeping everyone in place.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Arroyo’s labor export policy and GFMD 'promote trafficking of Filipino women'
BY BULATLAT
A women’s party list group scored the Arroyo government and the Global Forum for Migration and Development (GFMD) for the intensified trafficking of Filipino women and children. To show their disgust for the Arroyo government and the GFMD, the Gabriela Women’s Party held a protest parade this morning at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Pasay City.
Gabriela Women’s Party’s “Parade of Pinays for Export (PX),” highlighted the plight of Filipino women who were trafficked as mail order brides, domestic workers and caregivers, and prostituted women in countries such as the US, Singapore, Japan, Kuwait, and Canada, among others.
According to reports, some 300,000 to 400,000 Filipino women are victims of trafficking yearly. They are among the 12.3 million victims of forced labor or servitude worldwide.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said that the Philippines belongs to the top five countries in the world with the most number of human trafficking victims, 80 per cent of the victims are female minors. The DFA reported some 238 cases of trafficking in 2007, 212 of these are cases of sex trafficking in Singapore.
Cristina Palabay, Gabriela Women’s Party secretary general, said that Arroyo’s labor export policy ‘legitimizes the trafficking of our women and children to precarious and exploitative situations in host countries.’
”Without jobs and livelihood within the Philippines, victims are lured, deceived and facilitated by profit-hungry syndicate recruiters and even government officials with promises of different jobs, good compensation, high wages and benefits,” Palabay said.
Palabay disclosed that despite the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act in 2003, there were only eight convictions involving 11 persons out of more than 200 cases filed in violation of the law.
Palabay also said that by highlighting the Philippine government as the role model among nations for exporting labor and by pursuing regular and protective forms of migration, “the GFMD’s role in the promotion of trafficking of women and children becomes clearer.”
”Without jobs and livelihood within the Philippines, victims are lured, deceived and facilitated by profit-hungry syndicate recruiters and even government officials with promises of different jobs, good compensation, high wages and benefits,” Palabay said.
Palabay disclosed that despite the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act in 2003, there were only eight convictions involving 11 persons out of more than 200 cases filed in violation of the law.
Palabay also said that by highlighting the Philippine government as the role model among nations for exporting labor and by pursuing regular and protective forms of migration, “the GFMD’s role in the promotion of trafficking of women and children becomes clearer.”
Palabay said that with the generation of some $28 billion from the illegal industry of trafficking of women and children, the GFMD sees trafficking as a “profitable industry.”
The group will participate in the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR), a counter forum to the GFMD, on October 28 to 30. (Bulatlat.com)
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